


it's quiet uptown

by jonphaedrus



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Child Death, Goodbye Sex, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, s3 finale spoilers, this is fine. im fine. im perfctly fine. we're all fine.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m always drunk!” Qrow shouts. “I’m always drunk, James! Ozpin is dead and what does it fucking matter any more! We might as well collapse a fucking building on him to make sure he doesn’t come back!”</p><p>“Stop it!” Glynda’s voice is like a whip, like shattering glass, and she shoves, hard, on Qrow’s chest, making him stumble. “He’s not dead!” Her voice cracks again, and the break is as hard-edged as a mirror, falling down about them. “Oz would be furious with you both!” Her eyeliner is running. “That’s what they want, they want us to fight, to come apart!” Her hand is clenched in the cloth of Qrow’s shirt, and she shakes, sagging down into herself. He always forgets how short she is without her heels. “I can’t do this,” her voice is shaking. “I can’t stop you fighting, I can’t do anything, we can’t do anything—“</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's quiet uptown

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to just be ironwood/ozpin but then qrow showed up and now why not have the best of ALL worlds.

James comes out of the vault with Amber’s cold, dead body in his arms, just starting to get stiff. Glynda comes out with her boots dangling from one hand, the heels shattered in combat, and Ozpin’s cane in the other.

James sits down so hard and fast on the pavement that Qrow can hear the metal half of his ass clunk against the ground, and bends over Amber’s dead body. Glynda holds Oz’s cane like the world is cracked glass, shattering and tumbling around them.

Qrow feels cold and sober all over, hot bile in his throat.

“Fuck,” James says, and it sounds so out of place in his deep, steady voice. He’s crying, and it’s one of the most awful things Qrow’s ever seen. James doesn’t cry. James Ironwood takes the hit and keeps on walking. James Ironwood is a rock in a storm.

He holds the collapsed body of the young woman tight in his arms, blood flecking his forehead, perfect hair ruined beyond all recognition. The space where Ozpin should be standing is yawning.

James’ tears are loud, hot, disgusting.

They bury Amber in silence.

 

 

“You aren’t _helping!_ ” James snaps, his voice cracking as he rounds on Qrow. “We can’t just—exterminate them like rats!”

“That’s what the Grimm _are_ ,” Qrow replies. “Just raze it to the ground, what’s it matter? Nobody’s ever going back to Beacon now.” He slams one fist against the wall. “We may as well get rid of the mess.” 

“You’re drunk.” The disgust in James’ voice is palpable. 

“I’m always drunk!” Qrow shouts. “I’m _always_ drunk, James! Ozpin is dead and what does it fucking matter any more! We might as well collapse a fucking building on him to make sure he doesn’t come back!”

“Stop it!” Glynda’s voice is like a whip, like shattering glass, and she shoves, hard, on Qrow’s chest, making him stumble. “He’s not dead!” Her voice cracks again, and the break is as hard-edged as a mirror, falling down about them. “Oz would be furious with you both!” Her eyeliner is running. “That’s what they want, they want us to fight, to come apart!” Her hand is clenched in the cloth of Qrow’s shirt, and she shakes, sagging down into herself. He always forgets how short she is without her heels. “I can’t do this,” her voice is shaking. “I can’t stop you fighting, I can’t do anything, _we_ can’t do anything—“

“Glynda,” Qrow’s voice is softer than he meant it to be, and he turns, wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulls her over, and she collapses into his chest, crying helplessly, her nails digging into his arm.

James edges closer, and Qrow wraps an arm around him too, lets James lean heavy on his shoulder, and they hold Glynda tight between them as she wails and crumbles, a puppet with her strings cut.

She holds Oz’s cane tight in her hand, like if she doesn’t let it go, he’ll still be there. “He’s not dead,” she keeps saying over and over again, and Qrow presses his nose into her hair, closes his eyes.

“He’s not,” he agrees, because he can’t think about it any other way. He can’t think about Ozpin’s broken body, bleeding from the edge of the mouth. He can’t think about Ozpin dying alone, overwhelmed, in a corner, while he and Ironwood and Glynda went to a downed ship. He can’t think about Ozpin stumbling, falling, dropping his cane and coughing blood and his broken body and his hoarse voice, screaming for the three of them while they weren’t—

They weren’t.

 

 

They spend the liminal nights in between the end and when they have to put their lives back together refusing to sleep apart. At night, James’ deep, even breaths are warm on the back of Qrow’s neck, and both his hands are warm on Qrow’s stomach, tucked up under his shirt to feel him there. Whole. Hale.

“I’m going back to Atlas,” James whispers, when the moon is bright enough outside of the window that it could be daylight but for the washed-out sheets. “Tomorrow.” 

“You can’t,” Qrow’s voice doesn’t sound like his voice, and he tightens one hand over the General’s flesh and blood one, fingers pressing together. “James, they’ll destroy you.”

“I have to.” His deep voice brokers no argument. “What happened here is in no small part my fault. I put too much stock in myself, in what I had created. I ran over you, and Ozpin, and Vale nearly fell for it.” He hesitates, and Qrow can feel his breathing slowing. “The least I deserve is a demotion.”

“No,” Qrow feels naked, and not just because he literally _is_. He feels like his nose should be pressed into Ozpin’s collarbone, the older man’s chin digging into his head, that Oz should be the one telling James to get his head out of his ass. Ozpin should be _there_ , on Qrow’s other side, pinning them all together instead of letting them fall apart.

James isn’t enough. Qrow isn’t supposed to be half of a whole, he’s supposed to be part of a team, the glue between two men who are too alike at even the best of times.

Qrow rolls over, presses his hands to the mis-matched halves of James’ chest. “You can’t.” His voice is so soft it’s almost inaudible. “I won’t let you go—throw your head on the copping block because of Cinder.”

“We can’t turn her in to the authorities,” James’ voice is soft, his palms warm on Qrow’s hips. “There’s nothing proving that anything happened except our words and the words of students. It was my soldiers that did all this.” He hesitates. “I deserve censure.”

“You’re—“ Qrow splutters, slides his hands up, wraps his fingers around James’ neck. “You’re so _stupid_ you’re such a fucking—“ He can’t even think of words, just pulls James over, kisses him.

He’s crying. 

Ruby won’t wake up. They’ve tried everything. She just sleeps and sleeps. Yang won’t talk to him, won’t let anyone touch her. She won’t leave Ruby’s side, and he keeps hearing her crying whenever there’s nothing else to listen to. He sees Penny’s body, and he knows James does—knows he sees the body of the girl who was as much his daughter as anyone ever would be. Pyrrha is _gone_ , and Qrow can’t stop thinking about Glynda coming up out of the vault holding Oz’s cane. Amber’s body, stiff and still, an arrow sprouting between her breasts.

Ozpin, screaming, alone. Ozpin, alone, against Cinder. Ozpin, coughing blood and alone on the ground and Qrow not _there_.

“I can’t do this again,” his voice is cracking as James rolls him over, the other man’s weight safe, heavy, _safe_. “I can’t send you off to lose everything. You didn’t do this it was—“

“Hush,” James says, thumbs wiping tears from Qrow’s cheeks, kissing him. “I’ll come back. I’ll be back.” He says it like he believes it, but Qrow doesn’t. At this point, he doesn’t believe anything.

He failed the girls, the one thing that ever mattered. Ozpin is _gone_. Beacon is an empty husk covered in screaming Grimm. It’s all come apart at the seams. It doesn’t _matter_.

“Please, Qrow,” James is pleading, and Qrow just cries harder, because he’s been strong all he’s _done_ is be strong—and now he just. Can’t. Any more. “Qrow.”

“James,” his voice cracks, and James is kissing him, pulling him closer. Qrow tangles his fingers in the other man’s thick hair, drags him over urges him on, moans into his mouth, wraps his legs around James’ powerful waist.

By the time they’ve found lube, by the time James is inside him, hard and insistent, Qrow has stopped crying. He just holds tight, fingers digging into the other man's back, face pressed into the sweat-slick skin of his left shoulder, and comes too hard and too fast, gasping James’ name, lets the other man fuck him through the aftermath until James stills, fingers white-knuckled on Qrow’s hips, and his groan is choked-off and strangled, his face blotchy and red from days of no sleep and crying, his hair a wreck. 

He doesn’t pull out afterward, and Qrow runs his hands up and down the other man’s beck, flesh and bone under his right hand and interlocking arcs of metal under his left. Listens to James’ heartbeat, loud, and their own ragged breathing.

 James traces nonsense patterns on Qrow’s side, right arm under Qrow’s waist, taking both their weight.

“Don’t go,” Qrow says at last, his voice quiet and too-small in his chest.

“I’m sorry.” James replies.

Qrow shuts his eyes. 

Breathes.

 

  

The transport ship takes off, and the last Qrow sees of Ironwood is the man’s tight face as he walks up the gangplank, to censure or demotion or both for something he is not at fault for. 

Next to him, Glynda is still carrying around Ozpin’s cane, and she holds it white-knuckled as they watch Ironwood and the Atlesian military wing away, all their firepower good for naught, in the end. They were played. All of them.

“I’m staying.” Glynda says, abruptly. Qrow turns to look at her—she has her heels back, and looks infinitely more composed than he feels. There are dark circles under her eyes. “Without Oz, I’m worried about Vale. I can at least...put it back together. Be here for the students and their families. Give. Something normal.”

“Are you sure?” Qrow’s voice is quiet. He’s too sober—or not sober enough. He can’t remember the last time he had enough to drink.

It was before Ruby collapsed in his arms, and before the dead girl in the vault, and before James stumbling out of a wrecked ship, before there was a gaping hole where Oz was supposed to be. It was before. Before.

“Yes.” Glynda straightens, takes a deep breath. “It’s what Ozpin would want me to do.” She rubs her hands together, around the hilt of Oz’s cane, and holds it out to him. Looks him in the eye. “Take it.”

“Are you sure?” Qrow feels hesitant. He might be fucking Ozpin, but Glynda has been by his side longer than anyone else. Their relationship is complex—more than just love, more than just friendship, more than family. “I don’t want—“

“If anybody can find him,” Glynda’s voice is fierce, “You can.” She presses Oz’s cane into his hand, closes his fingers around him. “ _Find him_ , Qrow. Find him. Bring him home." 

He holds Ozpin’s cane in his hands, and clenches his jaw.

“I’ll find him,” he says, as much for Glynda as for himself. “Or die trying.”

No matter what.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr @professorjonathanphaedrus, twitter @jonphaedrus


End file.
